Early Life
Cruise O'Brien was born in Dublin to Francis ("Frank") Cruise O'Brien and Kathleen Sheehy. Frank was a journalist with the Freeman's Journal and Irish Independent newspapers, and had edited an essay written fifty years earlier by William Lecky, on the influence of the clergy on Irish politics. Kathleen was an Irish language teacher and daughter of David Sheehy, a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party and organizer of the Irish National Land League. She had three sisters, all of whom lost their husbands in 1916. These included Hanna, wife of murdered pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, and Mary, wife of Thomas Kettle, an officer of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who died during the Battle of the Somme.
O'Brien's father (who died in 1927) requested his wife have his son educated in a non-denominational school. O'Brien was sent to Sandford Park School, despite the objections of the Catholic clergy. O'Brien subsequently attended Trinity College Dublin which, like Sandford Park, was neither Catholic nor nationalist in ethos. O'Brien was editor of Trinity's weekly, TCD: A College Miscellany. His first wife was Christine Foster, who came from a Belfast Presbyterian family. They were married in a registry office in 1939, which was contrary to Catholic teachings. O'Brien had three children with Christine Foster — Donal, Fedelma, and Kathleen (Kate), who died in 1998. The marriage ended in divorce after 20 years. In 1962, he married the Irish-language writer and poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi. She was five years his junior, and the daughter of former TD and Tánaiste, Seán MacEntee. They adopted a son (Patrick) and a daughter (Margaret).
O'Brien's university education led to a series of appointments in the public service, most notably in the Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs). He became something of an anomalous iconoclast in post-1922 Irish politics, particularly in the context of Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government. He considered that those who did not conform to traditional Catholic mores were generally not suited to the public service. In the Department of External Affairs, O'Brien served as a diplomat under the pro-physical force republican, Seán MacBride, the Nobel Peace Laureate of 1974. MacBride was the son of John MacBride and Maud Gonne. O'Brien was particularly vocal on the anti-partition issue during the 1940s.
Read more about this topic: Conor Cruise O'Brien
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